Mortgage Stocks Caught in Fed Minutes Rout

Ellie Mae and OceanFirst Financial are the only two Mortgage Industry Equity Composite stocks to buck the bear stock market on Wednesday.

The market reacted to the release of the minutes from the January meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. Ellie Mae finished 1.65% ahead of its Tuesday close, while OceanFirst was up 0.27%.

Homebuilder KB Home led the MIEC stocks in the red, down 7.54%. The Census Bureau reported single-family housing starts edged up by less than 1% in January but it was still enough to push construction activity to the highest level since July 2008.

Bank of America was down 3.20%, while PHH was down 2.44%.

Radian finished down $0.09 per share to $7.50, although for much of the day it was actually over the 52-week high it had set on Tuesday, topping out at $8.28.